Why there is no scheme of taking car via train?
It could be so much better not having to drive and still having your own car once you reach your destination.
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>> Why there is no scheme of taking car via train?
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>> It could be so much better not having to drive and still having your own
>> car once you reach your destination.
Used to be, you could do Earls Court to Cornwall and Neasden to Scotland, drive your car on and drive it off. There is even a car ramp left at Pilning near Bristol, to take your car under the Severn railway Tunnel.
All gone now, nice idea but no-one likes it.
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I think the UK is too small to make it worthwhile.
It works well trans-Europe across into Turkey.
www.seat61.com/Motorail.htm
but even then is pricey enough not to bother.
I also see it has just been discontinued from Calais.
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IIRC last UK Motorail was overnight Paddington to Plymouth/Penzance 'The Night Riviera' and stopped several years ago.
Platforms 17 at Euston still has a ramp at end for end loading Anglo/Scottish Motorail 'carvans'. There was also a device to allow cars to go into/off carriages through side doors on platforms 16 or 18. Egress was via an overbridge into Cardington St - only gated off in last year or so.
The 'carvans' ran in same consist as sleepers to Inverness, Fort William etc. Service stopped in nineties when sleepers were rationalised.
Further back there were daytime services to Stirling and an extensive London Terminal at Olympia. Also some inter-regional services eg York to Brockenhurst.
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>> All gone now, nice idea but no-one likes it.
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Killed I reckon by automotive development. Popular back in the days when, if you wanted to travel several hundred miles by car, you'd be doing it at 50mph and quite likely to require the services of a skilled mechanic en route.
Edit: Were it still around, electric cars would make rather more sense, especially if you could charge 'em on the train......
Last edited by: TeeCee on Tue 21 May 13 at 12:24
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I've looked at it a few times for continental journeys, but it has never stacked up pricewise over years of looking.
The other problem is that it never starts where you want to, nor does it finish anywhere near where you are actually going, so you end with what can be a fair old drive at both ends anyway.
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It's sure to cost more than just driving the car, which is what I like doing, especially on continental roads over long distances. So I would never consider doing it normally. Seems to me it's essentially for lazy mimsers who hate and fear cars but want to waddle about getting in everyone's way at their holiday or business destination.
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We've used both French and Belgian Motorail over the years to go to Italy.
Basically it's been almost the same cost as flying (pre cheap airlines) and hiring a car when you get there, or driving all the way, with overnight stops. Generally been around £1000.
(We really did it so we could bring back lots of wine.)
8o)
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>>All gone now, nice idea but no-one likes it.
>>I think the UK is too small to make it worthwhile.
I would use one or the other but not both. Like HS2, unnecessary in a country the size of the UK.
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Motorways killed it, strangely as it may seem when you are stuck in a Motorway jam.
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And by more comfortable cars, Z. I remember Motorailing from Reading to St Austell in 1975, a journey that would have been a sweaty ordeal in my dad's vinyl-seated Renault 12, but which my family estate car would - traffic permitting - take in its stride.
Sad to see the Calais routes go, though. Loved waking up in Avignon or Narbonne, and being served coffee and croissants before waddling up into the hills to annoy AC and the locals.
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>> waddling up into the hills to annoy AC and the locals.
You aren't a mimser are you WDB? I'm sure you would never annoy me.
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Ah, AC, that's the nicest thing you've ever said to me!
Not a natural mimser, certainly, although I do take it a bit easier for the first few hours on the wrong side - and they're less used in Languedoc than Normandy to newly-arrived and disoriented Rosbifs.
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>> And by more comfortable cars, Z. I remember Motorailing from Reading to St Austell in
>> 1975, a journey that would have been a sweaty ordeal in my dad's vinyl-seated Renault
>> 12,
Good lord for one moment I thought you were going to talk about a journey in 1955 in your dads wheezing side valve popular. 1975? That, for me was an exiting 3.5-4 hour thrash at sparrow fart o'clock in some fast evil handling capri to see a girlfriend. No motorway either, it was an A303 / A30 job.
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HS2 would make sense if it was really HS. You need to be looking at 250 mph plus so you can replace shuttle flights. Ours wont be anywhere near that of course. So it wont.
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No one favours HS2 except the contractors who will build it and the politicians in their pockets. It's totally misconceived and an utter waste of money that would be better used to improve existing rail services and make them as cheap and efficient as they are in, say, France.
I hope it will be squashed by a national consortium of nimbys. This is a small country and it will eat up a lot of land just to get in everyone's way and cost them money. I can't help wondering what this government thinks it's doing. Seems dead set on annoying its own natural supporters with this and other proposals. Not wise.
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>>No one favours HS2 except the contractors who will build it and the politicians in their pockets. It's totally misconceived and an utter waste of money
I almost dread to think what your comments would be on guided busways. I see the Luton one (built on a disused railway) is now months overdue and over budget. While the Cambridge one's still waiting to go to court.
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>> No one favours HS2 except the contractors who will build it and the politicians in
>> their pockets. It's totally misconceived and an utter waste of money that would be better
>> used to improve existing rail services and make them as cheap and efficient as they
>> are in, say, France.
Trouble is AC they spent billions less than ten yrs ago improving the existing service from Euston. It's full again. Trains leave at 3 minute gaps and run at 125mph and at 11-12 coaches are as long as they can be.
You can faff about pouring more billions into rebuilding junctions, by passing Stafford and realigning bits to squeeze out 5 more minutes from a Manchester train. Another few billion buys 140mph commuter trains for Milton Keynes and Northampton so the current 110mph jobbies don't get under the toes of the expresses. But its still full by 2020.
So instead you build a fast new well aligned 200mph railway. Loads of new capacity and much more freed up on the old one too.
Look at HS1 as it runs through the Kent Weald. Does it really eat up that much land or blight the countryside?
Last edited by: Bromptonaut on Mon 20 May 13 at 20:10
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Or just address the root cause by reducing immigration.
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>> they spent billions less than ten yrs ago improving the existing service from Euston. It's full again. Trains leave at 3 minute gaps and run at 125mph and at 11-12 coaches are as long as they can be.
Are these every-three-minutes 12-coach trains 'full'? One or two a day perhaps, the rest three-quarters empty. There's more than enough 'capacity' already.
200mph be damned. What's the hurry anyway? If you're that pressed and that damn important you can take the plane, or charter one. Or get your chauffeur to step on it in the Bentley while you sit in the back shuffling dreary accounts records and falling into a cataleptic trance.
What the country really needs is ordinary trains that don't charge a king's ransom, are clean and run on time. Like the ones in France. OK if they go quite quickly on some routes - to the channel tunnel or the northern industrial centres.
We aren't Japan or France. We just invented railways and built them all over the world. Let our followers and acolytes develop bullet trains and such. Chapeau, well done chaps!
But we don't need or require them. We ought to be grown-up enough to realise it. I hate this crap.
Last edited by: Armel Coussine on Mon 20 May 13 at 20:40
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>> Are these every-three-minutes 12-coach trains 'full'? One or two a day perhaps, the rest three-quarters
>> empty.
A wild guess form someone who doesn't use that service?
>> 200mph be damned. What's the hurry anyway?
The irony is strong with this one. From someone constantly banging on about mimsers on the roads getting in his way? What's the hurry? Are you so important etc etc.....
;-)
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>> Are these every-three-minutes 12-coach trains 'full'? One or two a day perhaps, the rest three-quarters
>> empty. There's more than enough 'capacity' already.
I'd say yes they are mainly full or near full. If they were not extension of the Pendolinos from 9 to 11 cars would not have been authorised.
Ironically the long distance trains with most capacity are in the peak where the system prices out casual users. The busiest are just after peak, from 18:30 onwards particularly Fridays. Additional services operate to take that demand.
The 12car London Midland peak services are amongst the most chronically overloaded in the country.
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Last edited by: Londoner on Tue 21 May 13 at 11:50
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I support investment in the best quality public transport system that we can afford. Clearly we need extra capacity as a priority.
I just wish that population would stabilise to help reduce the strain on transport and public services.
The ONS shows only 4 EU countries with a higher population growth rate than England & Wales, and an above trend increase at the last census.
tinyurl.com/mpzvfnq
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>> Seems to me it's essentially for lazy mimsers who hate and fear cars but
>> want to waddle about getting in everyone's way at their holiday or business destination.
>>
Being not a mimser, nor hating or fearing cars, my only motivation was to investigate the time and money saving factors, neither of which came close to being fulfilled. It's a shame they could never offer the service at a price that almost equalled the cost of driving. We've just ferried from Amsterdam to Newcastle on our recent UK visit, and although the ferry sounded expensive at first, it came close to costing the same as driving from Dover with the associated further costs of overnight stops and fuel, plus we effectively gained a day. It was close enough to clinch the deal on the ferry.
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Well now, I'd use it if it was cost effective. But you just know it wouldn't be. For example, I sometimes go to Italy for a short week or so to work. I have on many occasions taken the car because I want to take and or bring back a lot of work related kit/stuff with me which incurs massive excess baggage charges on an aeroplane and indeed I need the use of a car when I'm there but the driving down and back can seem like a long way, particularly in winter.
Mostly now I just pay the excess baggage and hire a car but if the motorail wasn't so dear I'd use that.
Equally, if I could put my car on one at say, Crewe, and take it off again at Euston and it didn't cost a fortune I'd use it for similar reasons.
However, it's already over £200 pleb class for a day return to London from there as a foot passenger at any useful time of day so goodness knows what magic number they'd conjure up to take a car too.
Last edited by: Humph D'Bout on Mon 20 May 13 at 18:46
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The Manchester to London trains are pretty much always full, I have been on them where people who have just turned up on the day have to stand.
Some of the off peak trains can be quieter but even then they are busy. I am getting a train later on tomorrow night into Euston so I will let you know how busy that was.
HS2 is needed otherwise in 20 years time there will be major problems. The key thing to remember about HS2 it is it is not about making journeys slightly quicker, it is all about increasing capacity.
No doubt poupers like me will still only be able to afford the West Coast route, but it will give people choice.
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>> The Manchester to London trains are pretty much always full
Understandable, If I found myself in Manchester, I would be on the first train outa there as well.
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Cheeky get ! You'd be better off under it !
Ted
Last edited by: Ted on Tue 21 May 13 at 15:33
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Why taking car via train is not popular? - Zero
